Using request_firmware assumes that the driver knows the FW file name

no it knows an ALIAS for it.

and the driver initiates the load. That's not our model where we work
with different FWs, don't know what the names are,

you can have the user make a symlink to the one he wants. No Big Deal.

 and the user 
initiates the load.

that sounds broken, but you can have a sysfs parameter for "load now";
cpu microcode has something like that as well..

but are you really sure you don't want to just do the load at "up"
time ?


-- 
if you want to mail me at work (you don't), use arjan (at) linux.intel.com
Test the interaction between Linux and your BIOS via http://www.linuxfirmwarekit.org